A "journey" involving running in place in the deep end. Quite possibly I've gone off the deep end.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Race report: Army 10 Miler, October 21, 2012

I ran the Army 10 Miler this morning, finishing in a time of
65:33 by my watch.Not the time I was
hoping to run, frankly. But I ran the best race I could, on a fun course in
perfect weather (temp 53, dp 44).There are far worse
things than missing your PR by 2 seconds.

No race report on the Army 10 Miler is complete without a
discussion of the logistics of getting to the start line – a process that
always ends up being much harder than it should be at Army.Last year, when I ran this race, I was
trapped in a Metro car for 20 minutes on my way to the start, and then needed
another 20+ minutes to exit the Metro station – the Pentagon station simply can’t
handle the # of people passing through it on race morning.

Eager to avoid a repeat, this year I took a
cab to National Airport, and then got on the Metro northbound for three
stops,meaning that I exited the Metro
station on the side that had much less traffic.Worked beautifully.My cab picked
me up at 6:05 am; I was at the exit of the Pentagon metro station by 6:30.Once I made it through the metro turnstiles,
I then parked myself just inside the station, to keep warm.I thought leaving the station at 7 would give
me enough time to check my baggage, warm-up, and get into my corral.

Oops.

I had completely forgotten that Army requires people to use
their clear bags (provided that morning, not at the expo) for bag check.And…I might be just a bit of a packrat.After a determined but ultimately futile
attempt to cram my large backpack into a much smaller plastic bag, I opted for
divide-and –conquer – splitting my possessions into multiple plastic bags, and then
tying them together.Luckily, bag check
took this contraption without arguing.

[my argument, had I been forced to make it, would have been
the following:
“either you let me check all this stuff, or I’ll have to leave it in a pile by
the side of the race course.Where it will
be flagged by the roving Army personnel as an unidentified suspicious package,
and result in massive disruption and chaos.Your call.”]

So that was one obstacle overcome.Now just to go to the corral and do my warm-up.

Um yeah.I forgot
that Army requires runners to go through a “checkpoint” before going to their corrals.I’m honestly not sure what they’re checking –
there was no pat down, and nobody looked for my bib (which was under my throwaway
shirt).I guess a bottleneck just seemed
like a good idea.And so we had one.

The end result was that, despite having gotten to the race
site well in advance of when I needed to be, I still ended up finally making it
to my corral with precious little time for a warm-up.Oh well.Jogged a bit less than a mile, did one stride and one drill, and then I
had to jump into my corral.I’d have to
warm-up on the course.I wasn’t too
worried about it, as I felt pretty good and limber.

+++

Jumped into my already packed corral, chatted with some
friends, and waited for the start.And
then the gun went off.And we
stood.These larger races always crack
me up – when the race starts, you don’t go, but instead stand and then start
slowly walking towards the front.Finally we crossed the start line, and were off.

I spent the first mile trying to find my groove while not
wasting too much energy swerving around people.

From then on, I tried to hit a groove and just hold it.I felt a bit slow, but also felt like my legs
were locked into that pace.As it turns
out, they were.In retrospect, I’m not
sure I could have done anything different – had I surged, I might have gotten
myself into a perkier rhythm, or I might have pushed myself into oxygen debt.

Army, though a fairly fast course, is not altogether flat,
with some elevation changes/hills on the 14th street bridge.For some reason, the hills of the 14th
Street Bridge didn’t seem anywhere near as onerous as they have in the past – a
positive development, I think.I held my
pace constantly though them.

The most annoying part of this race was the finish
line.They move it every year, it seems,
and it’s about a quarter mile further each time.Several years back, you would come down a
sharp descent to a final turn, and then the finish line was there.Then last year they redid the course, with
the finish line being moved a half mile further (on the other side of a very
mild overpass that still seemed insulting).

This year, the finish line was yet ANOTHER 400m away.And not visible in the distance.“WTF” was going through my mind – i.e. “Where’s
the Finish.”We were running past the
Pentagon, so it couldn’t be too far away.Then finally I saw it, and flowed across, before slowing to a walk and
hitting my watch.

Final time – 65:33.2
seconds off of my PR from Cherry Blossom.Weird thing was that though my legs felt like they couldn’t turn over
faster, I also felt about 5 minutes later like I could have run the race over
again.That’s a good sign, I think.My legs may just be marathon primed.

++++

Splits were:

Mile 1: 6:52

Mile 2: 6:32

Mile 3: 6:32

Mile 4: 6:33

Mile 5: 6:34

Mile 6-7: 13:08 (6:34)

Mile 8: 6:31

Mile 9: 6:34

Mile 10: 6:18

So, very consistently paced – I just wish I could have
hooked into a bit faster rhythm.But ah
well.

Overall, I’m happy with it.I was hoping to at least break 65 minutes, and am a bit sad I didn’t.But, I essentially tied my PR from Cherry
Blossom on a slightly slower course (Cherry Blossom is lightning fast) while in
the middle of marathon training, and I didn’t taper like I did for Cherry Blossom.And I
ran the best race I had in me today, and I can’t be unhappy with that.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.